AMA dinner postponed due to superstorm

October 31, 2012

SARANAC LAKE - Village officials have postponed Thursday's civic testimonial dinner honoring the American Management Association due to the storm.

"I received a call at 3 p.m. (Tuesday) from Martin Delahay, the vice president in charge of AMA's Saranac Lake operations that he and AMA President Edward Reilly, the event's guest of honor, are stranded on Long Island without power or a way off the island due to effects of tropical storm Sandy," Rabideau said in a press release. "In fact, Mr. Delahay was just then able to get to a part of the island to make a cell phone call which is 4 miles from his home."

AMA is based in New York City. It employs about 160 people at its Saranac Lake facility, located on the former site of the Trudeau Sanitarium.

Rabideau told the Enterprise Tuesday that several politicians had been lined up to speak at the event, including U.S. Rep. Bill Owens, state Senator Betty Little, state Assemblywoman Janet Duprey and Essex County Board of Supervisors Chairman Randy Douglas.

"We had a great event planned, but we'll do it again," Rabideau said.

The village initially planned to host the event, which would have featured a buffet dinner and a cash bar, in the Harrietstown Town Hall but moved the event to the Left Bank Cafe last week. Rabideau told the Enterprise then that the bigger venue wasn't needed based on the number of people who had said they were coming at that point, which was about 50.

There were also apparently some issues between the town and the village over its use of the town hall. The village had secured approval from the town board to use the building for the event, but it hadn't submitted the necessary paperwork to be able to serve alcohol. The village had also ordered glassware to use for the dinner, but the town's building use policy doesn't allow glass to be used in the auditorium, only plastic.

Rabideau said Tuesday that he hopes to be able to reschedule the testimonial dinner sometime soon. When that happens, he said the details will be announced in a news release and posted on the village's website, www.saranaclakeny.org.